


If It Had Been Her

by nonbinarycoded



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: but i opened a doc and nightmares happened instead sorry, i know i said i'd write the sequel to the cute fluff, spoilers for episodes 68 and 69
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 17:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8409682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarycoded/pseuds/nonbinarycoded
Summary: Percy didn't need more of a reason to have nightmares. Unfortunately, dying tends to fuel them. Even more unfortunately, when traumas blend together, he finds himself wondering what would have happened if Cassandra had been there instead.





	

The one good thing Percy had to say about his recurring nightmares were that they were, well, _recurring_ . He knew exactly what to expect each and every time, with just slight variations depending upon the anxiety at the forefront of his mind that day. He’d always have to relive that night, always have to relive fleeing the castle. Sometimes he watched himself run, sometimes he watched his family die, sometimes he _was_ his family dying. There was a set pattern to these things, see. But of course Ripley had ruined that. She ruined everything; of course she’d found a way to ruin nightmares as well.

Percy hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since they’d found evidence of Ripley in Ank’harel. The sleep he’d gotten on the airship had gotten worse with each new scrying spell Keyleth used. Each spell sent a whole new host of anxieties curling into Percy’s gut, clawing at his stomach and brain together in an awful duet. Each night he got progressively less sleep as the nightmares got progressively worse.

And then he died.

It wasn’t so much a surprise to him as it was a bitter acceptance of the fact that he’d been right. He’d always known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Ripley would probably be the death of him somehow. If not Ripley, then maybe, _maybe_ Orthax. Appropriate then, that it ended up being a combination of the two that finally ended him. He was just surprised it had taken them this long. Damn it, he hated being right.

Here’s the thing about being dead. All that talk about death being peaceful? Bullshit, apparently. He’d never again refer to the dead, even the peaceful dead, as ‘restful’. Death was not rest. Rest was nightmares, rest was panic, rest was something that could be taken in small doses and put off as long as humanly possible. But if rest hurt, death was _excruciating_. Then again, maybe that had been just special for him. Orthax had been so fond of him, after all, he wouldn’t be shocked if he’d gotten some kind of special treatment. Wasn’t that a sickening thought.

Another thing he learned about death: it gives you stiff muscles like absolutely nothing else. Waking up from it had been awful, and going to bed afterwards hadn’t been much better. He knew better than to expect a restful night after everything he’d been through, but a small part of his mind had just the tiniest bit of hope that maybe he’d be so exhausted after everything that he’d fall into the first deep sleep he’d gotten in quite some time. No such luck, apparently.

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep for before nightmares had woken him up, but it hadn’t been long enough to relieve him of those damned stiff muscles. At least the pounding headache that had been there since he’d been revived had subsided into a more reasonable throbbing headache. Much easier to handle. It was difficult to focus on that, though, when he was trying to keep himself from hyperventilating. Leave it to fucking Ripley to provide him with new nightmare fodder. This one had sent him, like so many others, into a blind panic over his sister. On this particular occasion, he was actually able to go seek her out afterwards, and he took immediate advantage of this.

Quiet whispers of _what if it had been her instead, what if she hadn’t been okay_ echoed through his mind as he forced himself out of bed. Pushing through the headache, he stumbled out of his room, then down the hall towards where he knew his sister would be pretending to sleep. She was a de Rolo, he _knew_ her. He knew that, given the option, she’d also stay up late into the night to study or plan or read. This was why he felt no remorse at all for simply walking straight into her room at such an hour.

“I am trying to sleep,” Cassandra deadpanned, not looking up from the spread of books and maps on the candlelit desk she sat at. Percy tried very hard to say something snarky in return, and found instead that his voice was choked thick with tears that refused to come. The space that should have been filled with a comeback was instead filled with ragged breathing. This made Cassandra look up, and all at once she took in who was at her door, the state he was in, and what must have happened to bring him to this again. She was on her feet in an instant and wrapped around him in another.

Percy accepted the hug gratefully, and he was even more grateful that she seemed to understand she had to be the one to fill the silence. “You’re safe. You’re _alive_ , despite all the odds. Your friends brought you back, and you’re safe, and she is cold in the fucking ground. Your fight with her is over.”

When Percy finally found the breath to speak, his voice was still hoarse and quiet. “I’m not the one I’m worried over,” he said, and then quieter, “...What if it had been you instead?” He sounded scared, and they both heard it. He sounded like they were young again, like he was scared for her safety over something significantly more mundane than a fucking madwoman trying to murder the pair of them. It was for this reason Cassandra pulled back just enough to give him a disbelieving look.

“We aren’t children anymore. You’re the one getting into trouble now, not me.”

“You’re ruling Whitestone, that’s dangerous!”

“Not as dangerous as what you do now.”

“Of course it is! There are assassins, there are--”  
  
“Which one of us has died so far?” The question hung heavy in the air between the two of them. It had been a low blow, but one Cassandra had found absolutely necessary to get her point across. Percy looked very pointedly at the ground, so Cassandra pressed on. “We are both in danger, but you more so than me. I do appreciate your worry about me, but I promise you I’m okay. More okay than you are, or are going to be.”

It was harsh, but exactly what Percy needed to hear. He nodded silently for a moment before thanking her quietly. Tears choked his words again, and he pulled Cassandra close once more so he could press his face into her shoulder. Normally, he’d be trying very hard to retain some sense of nobility through this. He figured dying gave him a pass on slipping this time.

He absolutely did not want to ask to stay, and sighed in relief when Cassandra realized why he wasn’t trying to go anywhere. “...Would you like to stay here? I don’t believe I’ll be going to bed any time soon either.”

“I would, thank you. You do need to rest at some point, you know.”

“Pot calling the kettle black," she said, letting him go and straightening her clothes.

“...Fair,” he conceded. “What are you doing up this late, though?”

“Well,” she said matter-of-factly, returning to stand over the desk. Percy trailed after her, and then listened to an explanation of trade that definitely would’ve put her to sleep as a child. He couldn’t keep a small, fond smile off his face when he realized that; they’d both grown so much. She especially had grown so much, into someone so self-assured.

She was safe.

He was working very hard to be safe, and she was safe.

_Perhaps_ , he thought, _things would be okay._

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I _know_ I said I'd write the sequel to the Grog/Percy fluff, but then I opened the doc and this shit happened. I'll get on the cute stuff right away to make up for it but I just _really_ needed to see Percy realizing everything could actually be okay even with nightmares and anxiety saying otherwise. Also, there isn't nearly enough sibling interaction between these two and for characters as close as they should be, that is absolutely a tragedy that I had to fix.


End file.
